Whether it’s stepping out on to the dancefloor for the Strictly Come Dancing live show, destroying the competition in the Gladiators arena or lining up against the best 100m sprinters in the world at the Olympic Games, Montell Douglas is well used to formidable foes. But the 38-year-old former Team GB Olympian, also known as Fire on BBC One’s Gladiators, says the toughest of all her challenges has been coping with period pain so serious it has hospitalised her.
“By the time I was 16 my monthly periods were a week long, really heavy and involved three days of quite severe pain. But all girls talked about period pain, so I didn’t understand that it was not normal to have it as badly as I did.
“I just thought that that’s what they were like – there was this air of, ‘oh, you’ve got period pain’, but the spectrum is very wide. On a scale of one to 10, I just felt like it was like 11 out of 10 all the time. I was missing days of school very early on because I couldn’t move out of bed, and remember constantly having to take medication to alleviate the pain.
“Other people used to use theirs as an excuse to get out of PE lessons, but I’d be trying to power on through because I loved sport so much.”
Her struggle continued well into her time as a professional athlete. “My monthly cycle used to really impact my training,” says Montell, who became the first female Brit to compete in different sports at both a summer and winter Olympics, after the track star joined the Team GB bobsleigh squad.
“It was a problem that came around every three weeks, so I used to try and fight through it to keep going. Once, I was literally doubled over on the ground, clutching my stomach waiting for the wave of pain to finish up and my coach was asking, ‘What is going on?’
“I would try to battle through, waiting for these contractions that would last 30 seconds or a minute to end so I could start my reps again.”
But despite taking the Pill for a decade, her issues didn’t improve. “I had a really traumatic incident just a couple of years ago where I had to be hospitalised because my period pain was just insane,” recalls Montell of one particularly shocking incident in April 2021.
“I don’t know why that day in particular was worse than others, but it was horrendous. I was at home on my own in excruciating pain. I took a painkiller and it didn’t kick in, so I took another and again it didn’t kick in.
“I ended up profusely sweating, having dizzy spells, passing out – I blacked out quite a few times. I rang my partner at the time, I rang my mum because I was very scared. “I rang an ambulance to come and get me and I was hospitalised. The nurse just looked at me and said, ‘you must be in absolute agony’.
“It was almost like the trauma of the pain had sent my body into shock. It was a very scary time for me. I literally at one point I was messaging my mum saying, ‘I don’t know if I’m going to make it, it’s just so bad’. I was convulsing and passing out multiple times.
“I didn’t know if I was going to wake up again, just from the pain,” says the sports star, who has teamed up with Bupa Health Clinic for the launch of its Period Plan service.
“My body couldn’t regulate its temperature and I became dehydrated, which probably made things worse. It sounds so unbelievable when you tell people that you were unconscious just because you had period pains.”
Research from Bupa has revealed 75 per cent of women say they suffer from painful, heavy or irregular periods, with 49 per cent having been told this is “normal” the severe impact of their periods has have left them suicidal.
Montell’s hospital dash led her to have a Nexplanon contraceptive implant inserted into her arm. “The doctors couldn’t say why the pain had been worse that day, but they thought I’d probably waited too long to take my usual painkillers, which meant they hadn’t been able to work properly.
“They didn’t think it was advisable for me to continue without an implant because they couldn’t say if or when the same thing might happen to me a second time, and they didn’t want me to get in the same state again.
“The implant is about an inch and a half long – they put a little slit under my bicep to insert it. I don’t really notice it at all, and I’m not sure how long I’ll have to have it for, but it helps me manage the flow and manage the pain. Now I feel like I’m in control, rather than my period controlling me.”
■ Bupa’s Period Plan is a personalised care plan for those suffering painful, heavy or irregular periods. It includes a 45-minute GP appointment, access to a 24/7 nurse-led helpline and more.
